


Like playing, like dancing

by Wodahn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Because this wouldn't stop rattling around in my head, Gen, It's about martial arts and stuff, Trans Female Character, also that feeling of being trapped on the ground is 10/10 and I may be projecting a wee bit, but y'all should try it it's hella fun, it was gonna be longer but then it wasn't, unbetaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 12:56:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9897956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wodahn/pseuds/Wodahn
Summary: A look at Lena from seven to seventeen, through the lens of martial arts





	

When Lena is seven, her mum sits her down at the kitchen table and pulls out three fliers. Lena knows how to read, even if it goes slow, but here the writing is small and close and hard to make out. Her mum explains that they’re from clubs, somewhere Lena can get out some of the energy that never seems to end. The fliers all have pictures, and one of them shows two people fighting with swords.

“What’s that one?” she asks her mum.

“Aikido, it’s called. It’s about protecting yourself, and,” Her mum smiles “they fight with spears too. Lena feels like there must be stars in her eyes, like in the cartoons, it sounds so cool!

“I wanna go there!” and her mum smiles like Lena has made her proud even though she only said she wanted to learn to fight with swords and spears and that doesn’t sound like something her mum would be proud of.

The first time, Lena is so excited she almost can’t stay still. She meets the teacher before class starts. He says his name is Moïse and his accent is thick and he’s tall and gangly with black hair and glasses and a kind smile and he makes Lena smile too, she’s so happy. Her mum had talked to him on the phone and then told Lena Moïse said she could change with the girls, of course, because Lena _was_ a girl no matter what the mean old kindergarten teacher had said and that makes Lena happy too.

Before class, they have to bow. Actually, they have to bow whenever they go into the training room, and then again when they’re going on the mat. There’s a picture at the front of the man who made aikido, and they have to bow to that too together with the teacher. While Moïse explains what they’re supposed to do, they have to sit very still, but Lena is so excited she can’t quite manage, so she taps her thigh as quietly as she can.

She’s not the only once in class, of course - there’s Stepa, who is nine and big and strong and blond and has weird toes and fingers (but Lena doesn’t say, because that’s _mean_ ), and Emily who has red hair and freckles and is _really_ pretty, and Noah who is the same age as Lena but taller and then a few others. It’s a lot like playing - they don’t even get to use swords, but they learn how to roll and fall without getting hurt and that’s fun too.

***

When Lena turns eleven, she gets put in the group with the bigger kids. Emily is there too, and Noah, but Stepa moved away before Lena got in the group with him. There’s a few more of them in this group than the last - a lot of them are teenagers, so she’s glad to have Emily and Noah there too. The things they do here is a bit more difficult, but it’s also more fun. They even get to use swords and spears now, and it’s just as fun as Lena had hoped, especially the spears. Of course, it’s not _really_ spears or swords - the swords are made of wood, and the spears are just short smooth sticks, but it’s still fun. When they use the spears with each other, it’s a lot like dancing - strike, block, strike, block, strike, block, walking in a circle all the while.

Whenever she does something right, Moïse tells her “well done” or “just so” in his thick french accent and it makes Lena feel like she’s glowing with pride. She likes Moïse a lot - he never yells, the way her mum does when Lena is being too much and her mum is tired from working, or when she breaks something. Even that time she did something wrong and hurt Emily’s wrist so bad Emily started crying and had to sit on the side for like half an hour, Moïse didn’t yell, just said that was why they had to be careful. Lena still felt really bad for hurting Emily, though.

***

When she's twelve, she almost quits aikido. Noah hits her in the face with a spear, real hard, and breaks her nose. Her skin splits across her cheek, and she breaks three teeth. She has to go to the hospital, she feels awful, and when she thinks of stepping on the mat again she feels nauseated.

Moïse comes to visit her. He stops by with sesame-honey sticks and chocolate covered caramels, and tells her to look at his face. Really look. It feels weird at first, but then she starts to see details - scars, many small and round, some bigger.

"When I was younger, I was very insecure about my face. It was full of pimples and rashes, and I felt like nobody could stand to look at me," he looks at her, traces the still-visible lines where her face split open with his eyes, "but I learned, my face is only a face. It is what is on the inside that matters," he looks at her a long moment "and if this does not reassure you, I have one more gift, if you want it."

She nods, curious.

"On one condition, then. You come back to the mat and try again, and you try to forgive Noah. Yes?"

She thinks for a long while, _really_ thinks if she dares. She remembers how Emily laughs and smiles when they do a technique right, and she nods.

"I promise."

"Then this is for you." Moïse pulls out a ring. It's silver, plain, and too big for her. It looks old, and she can see something marked around the outside of it.

"What's it say?"

"Gam zeh ya'avor. It's hebrew, it means _This too shall pass_. Have you heard that story?"

She shakes her head, even more curious now. 

So he tells her. There was a king, a long time ago, named Solomon. He was a wise king, but he could get very sad. So he asked the philosophers and thinkers and wise men of his kingdom to make him a ring, to make him happy when he was sad. And the wise men went off, and after a long while they came back with a ring like this. It did as King Solomon asked, and made him happy when he was sad - but it also made him sad when he was happy. It seems like an annoying sort of ring, thinks Lena, but she keeps it all the same. And come Monday, she steps back on the mat.

He doesn't mention that the ring used to be his, and Lena doesn't ask. But even now, she can read between the lines.

***

When Lena is thirteen, she gets the blue belt that means she’s managed to get to yonkyu. She runs out to tell Emily, after bowing to Moïse, and her mum gets them both ice cream to celebrate. Later that evening, her mum sits her down at the kitchen table, the same way she did six years ago. Her mum tells her about puberty, and then about puberty blockers and hormones and surgery.

“You don’t have to, of course. It’s your choice, and only yours,” Her mum looks her right in the eye “and I love you, no matter which you pick. You’re the best daughter I could have either way.”

That week, they learn how to put someone on their knees when you’re holding only their wrist. It’s fun, and Lena likes it. That’s the week she learns how to give in and accept she’s lost a fight. It’s hard not to, when someone has you locked up so you can’t get up no matter what.

***

When she's fifteen, Lena starts to realize she _likes_ it when someone puts her on the ground. She _likes_ it when someone pushes her arm upwards just _so,_ just enough that pain shoots down her arm and along her body and it forces her leg up because of how everything fits together.

She likes it best when Emily does it.

***

People call aikido a gentle martial art. Maybe it is, compared to other ones. That week, they start on multiple people attacking at once. She sees Moïse put four people on the ground, again and again, never getting touched himself. Whenever someone comes close to him, he pulls back a little, puts one hand above and one below each of their outstretched arms, and flips them to the ground. She's seen judo, karate, jiu jitsu, and half a dozen other martial arts on budo days, and while some of them are more flashy, or require more padding, she's yet to see anyone beat Moïse.

Maybe aikido is gentle. In her experience, it's only gentle the way pulling someone's arm out of its socket is gentler than breaking it.

***

Lena does get the puberty blockers. The national health services covers most of the cost, luckily; they couldn’t have afforded it on their own. She thinks for a long time about whether she wants surgery. It’s not until she’s seventeen that she makes up her mind. She’s working her way up to black belt, slowly, and even picked up the nerve to ask out Emily earlier that year. Noah had cheered when Emily had said yes, and Lena couldn’t stop smiling, her feet tapping of their own accord out of joy. She gets estrogen, and everything feels like it’s going right in her life.

And then, two years later, the Omnic crisis hits.


End file.
